Ireland’s oldest film festival has just made history by becoming the first film festival in the country to participate in a Europe-wide pilot project to show festival films in public libraries.
The Cork Film Festival, established in 1956, is one of seven European film festivals taking part in the Audio Visual Access which is co-funded by the European Union and Creative Europe Media.
Special viewing stations have been installed in Cork city’s Central Library on the Grand Parade allowing the public to view films curated from the previous year’s film festival, free of charge.
Cork Film Festival producer Fiona Clark said that the film festival was pleased to be teaming up with Cork City Library as libraries play a vital role in ensuring the public have equal access to media.
“We are delighted to partner with Central Library on this exciting initiative, to create greater access to local, national and international films for the people of Cork and visitors to the city,” she said.
Ms Clark explained that for over 80 per cent of the films presented at the Cork Film Festival in November each year, it is the only chance for audiences to see them on the big screen in Cork.
“It is fantastic, that after the buzz of the festival has come to an end, more audiences will have an opportunity to see the wonderful short film programmes we have carefully curated, “she said.
Ms Clark said the AVA pilot project will commence with a series of 13 short films entitled “Best of Cork” that premiered at last year’s film festival and showcases some of Cork’s finest filmmakers.
Two further series, Irish Shorts and World Shorts, will also be available during the summer, in the lead up to the 2017 Film Festival as part of AVA which began in the Central Library at the weekend.
And it’s hoped the pilot project will extend into 2018, with feature documentaries and shorts selected from this year’s Festival, and include a video-on-demand facility for library card-holders.
Cork City Librarian, Liam Ronayne welcomed the initiative and said the library was happy to assist in making the work of both Cork, Irish and international filmmakers available to a wider audience.
“We are delighted to be working with Cork Film Festival and international partners to give all library visitors the opportunity to access our audio-visual heritage through this collaboration.”
